* This happens ''all the time'', with fans assuming that the publishers were the ones who made the game, often ignoring the developers. Apparently, Creator/SquareEnix is responsible for the remake of ''VideoGame/LufiaIIRiseOfTheSinistrals'', despite the fact that Neverland, the developer of the series (with the exception of ''The Ruins of Lore''), was the one working on it -- Square Enix only published it in Japan (with Natsume, the same company that localized the original version, handling localization) and funded it. Also, Square Enix gets yelled at for publishing ''VideoGame/CallOfDutyModernWarfare2'' in Japan, with people saying it would be tainted with [[{{Bishonen}} girly men]]. Game publishing doesn't work that way.** ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'' gets this a lot as well. Many of the complaints and praises fans make, be it Pokémon designs or contests or broken balancing, are aimed squarely at Nintendo, ignoring the fact that it is Creator/GameFreak who actually develops the core handheld games.** An interesting example is ''VideoGame/PokemonGo'', which made Nintendo's stock price more than double weeks after release... until Nintendo said they didn't actually make the game and wouldn't end up with much money from it, which made the stocks drop badly. In fact, Nintendo didn't even publish the game (The Pokémon Company did), so the only "connection" they had to the game was the Pokémon brand (which again, they only publish, not develop) ** It gets really ridiculous when a certain controversial episode of the [[Anime/{{Pokemon}} Pokémon X And Y anime]] [[http://knowyourmeme.com/photos/1160996-ash-s-kalos-league-final-battle actually resulted in Nintendo's stock dropping by 2%]] when Game Freak and Tokyo TV have far more to do with the show than the poor video game company does.* ''VideoGame/ETTheExtraTerrestrial'' often gets single-handed blame for UsefulNotes/TheGreatVideoGameCrashOf1983. Often pointing to the game's quality blaming it for poor sales evidenced by the massive returns and subsequent dumping of copies in a desert landfill. This was more due to an issue with quantity. The game actually was one of the best selling games on the 2600, selling a million copies which for the time was pretty good. However, Atari vastly overestimated the expected sales and produced more copies than the number of [=2600s=] that had been sold resulting in retailers sending back a massive amount of unsold copies. ''E.T.'' wasn't the only game as well. The ''Pac-Man'' port itself was one of the games dumped into the landfill again because Atari vastly overestimated the sales, despite selling an impressive 7 million copies, Atari still was stuck with millions more copies that were unsold. While Atari was a big factor in the crash, overall it had to do with other factors such as an over-saturation of poor titles flooding the market, competition with home computers, inflation and loss of publishing control. To sum up: While ''E.T.'' certainly was a contributing factor to the crash, it was quite far from being ''the'' reason.** Nolan Bushnell often gets thrown in for blame despite being forced out of Atari and the industry in 1978 four years before either games were released.* On the subject of ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'', Smogon's HateDumb near-universally hates on Sleep Clause as "another of Smogon's stupid rules". Sleep Clause is in fact an official rule created by Game Freak, you can find it in just about every console ''Pokemon'' battler. The only clauses specifically created by Smogon are those dealing with Evasion, Moody, and One Hit KO moves. * As it turns out, ''VideoGame/{{Superman 64}}''[='=]s glaring faults and ridiculous storyline were mandated by the license holders, meaning that most of the errors ''weren't [[Creator/TitusSoftware Titus]]' fault'', as shown by [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pirnxPT8ogA ProtonJon's LP (opening of level 4)]].** It's really hard to tell how much of this is blame-shifting, though footage of the beta, superior to the final product, supports his claims of a rushed deadline.* The English translation of ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaIISimonsQuest'' for the NES is almost infamous for its poor translation, like [[http://www.flyingomelette.com/oddities/oddities4.html blatant in-game lies]] supposedly meant to tell you what your next goal is, how to reach that goal, and [[GuideDangIt other such game-critical information]]. For years, fans thought the translation was to blame, but the original version was actually just as incomprehensible.** Yes, even the infamous "graveyard duck" is not a mistranslation. As pointed out in a comment on [[http://www.gamespite.net/verbalspew/archives/entry_1130.php the GameSpite blog]], the corresponding line in the Japanese version uses the word "ahiru", which can ''only'' refer to the bird.** The apparent idea behind the quotes in the Japanese version was that all the villagers were ''liars'' -- that is to say, they all said false things that players were supposed to realise were silly. However, when you have no other clues or information to go by, not to mention a lack of grammatical context in such small text boxes, both Japanese and English audiences started to wonder why the game was telling you to shout in front of a church to restore health instead of just going inside to heal. In fact, given that the Famicom controller had a microphone built into it, the Japanese probably had it worse...*** Some of the townsfolk tell you things like what Dracula's rib does or where you can find some of the thirteen "scriptures" which explain what to do at the impassable cliffs and lakes etc. One villager tells you how to get through the poison marsh, another that you must get the cross at Laruba's Mansion... Not everything is useless or lies, and the manual does warn you that some of it is. Talking to some of the townspeople is also necessary in order to find out which ones sell you items. The dialogue sets the tone for the atmosphere and type of people you encounter in each town, deepening the game, and some of the utterances are quite funny, adding to the entertainment value. Also you know you're getting nearer the end when the townsfolk are more scared in the towns you come across, which is a useful clue and adds to the ambience as well.* Many people are angered by the fact that Bahamut was portrayed as a dragon in games like ''Franchise/FinalFantasy'' and ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons''. And yet for some reason, the blame seems to fall ''solely'' on ''Final Fantasy'' for making people think this. A lot of things in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyI'' were based off things in ''Dungeons and Dragons'', at least at the start, and Bahamut was one of those things. Digging deeper, in the 1st edition of advanced Dungeons and Dragons Bahamut was introduced as a dragon [[ShownTheirWork loosely based off of Arabic mythology]], and was never meant to be [[SpellMyNameWithAThe THE]] Behamut. (Surprisingly some of the same people will credit this as starting the Beholder trend, showing that they at least ''looked'' inside the manual) Another interesting thing is that despite how commonly Bahamut appears in the FF games, his role is rather limited. There have never really been any stories centered around the character, and he's mostly been a summon. ''Dungeons and Dragons'' is more to blame for popularizing dragon!Bahamut, using him as a character in several campaigns.** It's also important to note that within Japanese mythology, the distinctions between "dragon" and "huge ancient mythological entity associated with the sea, storms, and earthquakes" are very hazy. Japan's own [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Namazu_(Japanese_mythology) Namazu]] is frequently given a draconic makeover in art, for instance, becoming an elongated catfish/dragon hybrid(when not being anthropomorphised into a [[FishPeople Reverse Mermaid]]). Had they not run with the D&D dragon derivative of Bahamut, Bahamut may still have been shown as very dragon-like by the game's designers...and this would not be considered as making him not ''also'' a giant sea creature.* When ''VideoGame/TalesOfPhantasia'' finally got an official English release, many people complained about various edits and changes made to the game script. Actually, many of the differences were a result of an earlier FanTranslation by [=DeJap=] of the SNES version being ''less'' faithful to the original than the official GBA version. Of course, there's still that thing about "Ragnarok" becoming "Kangaroo" (as well as generally being a pretty bland localization and some consistency issues with the ''VideoGame/TalesOfSymphonia'' translation), but despite what anyone says that's pretty much the ''only'' outright mistake.** There was still some sexual humor in the original Japanese (like Arche's infamous sex dream about Cless -- which is still in the GBA translation, albeit in a more subtle, less blatantly obscene form -- and Arche admiring Mint's figure in the hot springs,) but [=DeJap=] was far less subtle about presenting it, as well as [[{{Flanderization}} ramping up Arche's pervertedness]] (also, Arche apparently fucks like a tiger).* Many people blamed the translation team for ''VideoGame/TalesOfLegendia'' not having any voicing at all in the second half of the game. Actually, they were not given the money to pay the voice actors for the second half, and [[BlatantLies were told it was an optional piece of the game]].* The German version of ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyX'' (which was the UpdatedRerelease to boot) was translated from the original Japanese version, omitting most of the changes the English version made. Unfortunately, they threw in the English voice overs instead of the Japanese ones. This triggered one of the most infamous {{Flame War}}s over how they could subtitle Yuna's "I love you" with "Thank you", when the latter was actually what she said in the Japanese version.** Said incident was enough to convince Square Enix to, in the future, translate any and all story parts, even if they're not voiced, from the English version.* Some ''VideoGame/SuperRobotWars'' fans get huffy over Atlus's translation of some OriginalGeneration pilot and unit names, specifically regarding "Zengar Zonvolt" becoming "Sanger Zonvolt" and his [[InfinityPlusOneSword Infinity Plus One Mech]] Daizengar becoming the rather silly-looking [=DyGenGuard=]. These two instances actually make sense: for Sanger's name, Atlus simply left off the umlaut on ''Sänger'', which is a German name and naturally katakana-tized as Zengar due to how it's pronounced. As for [=DyGenGuard=], it's short for Dynamic General Guardian. The whole Daizengar ("Great Sänger") bit was an intentional pun, again due to Japanese pronunciation. Atlus's only fault in this was being lazy with their accent marks.** "Latooni Subota", on the other hand, ''probably'' ought to be Latune Cybota to stay faithful to typical Cyrillic transliteration (she's Russian. Ish.) Basically, Atlus is perfectly faithful to Japanese. It's European languages that they half-ass.** Meanwhile, strange Romanizations like "Hagwane" were preserved in the official sub of the anime at Bandai's insistence, as was a lengthy joke in the game ''Original Generation 2'' that no longer makes sense when the names are pronounced in the English way. These could be considered cases of a translation being ''too'' faithful to the original work.* ''VideoGame/TalesOfSymphoniaDawnOfTheNewWorld'' was yelled at by fans who complained about how "they took the wimpy way out with the bad ending" and instead of [[spoiler:Marta killing herself]], she [[spoiler:just writes a sad letter]]. Marta didn't [[spoiler:commit suicide]], that was a mistranslation...but the [[spoiler:HeroicSacrifice of Emil was still there, as was Marta's DisneyDeath, and her TearJerker cry of '''EEMMMMIIIIIIIIIILLLLL!!!!''']]* ''VideoGame/ZeldaIITheAdventureOfLink'' features a strange man in a house in Ruto who, when spoken to, says [[GratuitousEnglish the bizarre phrase]] "I AM ERROR". It turns out that Error is his actual name, and was spelled phonetically in Japanese; if you talk to another character in Mido, he tells Link to ask Error about how to find the secret entrance to the Island Palace in the graveyard. There's another guy in the game named [[ThemeNaming Bug]], but the translators apparently misinterpreted this and translated his name "Bagu" directly from the katakana.* The original ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaI'' is known for being a BlindIdiotTranslation. As shown [[http://legendsoflocalization.com/the-legend-of-zelda/first-quest/ here]] though, the game's most infamous lines, like "Eastmost penninsula [sic] is the secret" and "10th enemy has the bomb" ''aren't in the Japanese version at all'', they were created specifically for the English version. (They replace hints that, ironically, would have been a lot more convenient and easy to understand, like "You can't use arrows if you run out of money" and "Look for the Lion Key") In other words, they're [[EpicFail epically failed attempts at]] {{Woolseyism}}s, not mistranslations. * Everyone wants their favorite games to be released on the Virtual Console (especially given that some of the old consoles may have been damaged, games take damage too, etc.). But because the Virtual Console doesn't have ''every'' game made prior to the [[UsefulNotes/SegaDreamcast Dreamcast]]-UsefulNotes/NintendoGameCube era, supposedly, this is the fault of Creator/{{Nintendo}}. Nintendo was not actually responsible for every game released on their systems, not to mention, many of the systems with games ''available'' on the Virtual Console weren't even ''made'' by Nintendo in the first place. While Nintendo ''did'' have some of the games they made and/or published on the Virtual Console, Nintendo still gets people angry at them for not having their favorite game on the Virtual Console, when Nintendo may not have had that much to do with the creation ''of'' that game outside of licensing it (if it was on a Nintendo system).** Some games on Nintendo's earlier systems were even released by companies that are now Nintendo's ''competitors''. Rare (which is now owned by Microsoft) and Sony were both third-party developers on the NES and SNES.* Many fans believe that ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyMysticQuest'' was created as an American replacement for ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyV'', which has helped contribute to the unfortunate amounts of hate for ''Mystic Quest''. In truth, the decision not to translate ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyV'' was completely unrelated to the creation of ''Mystic Quest''.* Similarly, Square's ''VideoGame/SecretOfEvermore'' is often despised by fans who believe the urban legend that the U.S. got it instead of ''VideoGame/SeikenDensetsu3''. In fact, the development of one had nothing to do with the other (especially because the former is an American game and thus incapable of interfering with any Japanese game's English localization). It turns out that the U.S. got ''VideoGame/ChronoTrigger'' instead of ''Seiken Densetsu 3''.* And speaking of Square, regardless of your opinions on their output, a lot of people seem to believe that ''artist'' Tetsuya Nomura not only does 100% of the character designs, but literally everything at Square Enix. He is often blamed for character designs on titles he's not involved in, accused of programming decisions, and sometimes even ''marketing''. For the record, he doesn't actually do much for ''Final Fantasy'' outside of designs and debugging, and actually didn't serve as a character designer for ''IX'', ''XI'', or ''XII'' (all of which we're told "were all Nomura's"). He also only directs the ''Kingdom Hearts'' series, got a side project out of ''VideoGame/TheWorldEndsWithYou'', and his ''first'' effort as a director for the ''Final Fantasy'' series is ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXV'', which is ironically being lauded by many of his detractors as a creative, fresh new direction for the series, unlike that other "Nomura anime crap".** And not to mention, let's not forget that people seem to think he only came around in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII''. He was a debugger in IV, monster designer in V, and actually designed several characters in VI. This leads to a inversion of this, as people always assume Amano designed every character in games I-IV, and complain about Nomura redesigning Setzer for ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsII'' because he was an Amano character--while Setzer was actually one of the ''VI'' characters that he designed. How '''DARE'' Nomura redesign ''his own character''?! The BASTARD! (Vivi was the character Nomura had qualms with using -- he didn't work on ''IX''.)*** These kids seem to want MORE of Nomura's redesigns on [[http://crimsoncobwebs.deviantart.com/art/Kingdom-Hearts-Garnet-101167858?offset=50#comments characters he didn't create]].** He's also blamed 100% for any story issues with the ''Kingdom Hearts'' series, due to his role as director. The other people who have helped write the story for the games (Jun Akiyama, Daisuke Watanabe, Kazushige Nojima, Masaru Oka, Tomoco Kanemaki, etc.) are forgotten.*** Nomura is also frequently made a target whenever a ''[[NoExportForYou Final Mix]]'' game is released. While he has gone on record for saying that he believes ''Final Mix'' is exclusive to Japan, it's more than just his decision to make it so. The boards at Square Enix don't let any (except for a few) UpdatedRerelease game come out of Japan, because they believe that it would not be profitable to do so. Despite a petition for ''Kingdom Hearts II Final Mix+'' to be released internationally showing otherwise. Sony, the makers of the [=PS2=], also have a strict rule against re-releases. They have to have a certain amount of new content before they are allowed to be released. In short, Nomura is only the director of the games, he alone cannot decide whether or not to release them internationally. And he has also said he'd like to release something like ''Final Mix'' internationally, but his hands are tied by the system he works in.** The HateDumb hasn't stopped there, either. ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIII'''s Hatedom has been screaming at stuff that Nomura had absolutely no part in. Yes, he designed the characters for ''Final Fantasy XIII''...but did you know that he's not even the sole artist for that game? Take one look at the credits. You'd be surprised at how ''little'' Nomura actually ''does''.** He hasn't helped with a lot of this by somehow managing to have MisBlamed ''himself'' in various interviews before now, though.* There is/was a ''lot'' of confusion around ''VideoGame/TacticsOgre''. No, it was ''not'' a ripoff of ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyTactics''. The latter was actually a SpiritualSuccessor to ''Tactics Ogre''. Yes, it was made by many of the same people. Yes, Square Enix localized the EnhancedRemake on the UsefulNotes/PlayStationPortable. No, Square Enix did ''not'' localize the game on the Playstation -- the mediocre translation full of typos and grammatical errors was actually done by Creator/{{Atlus}}, since Square had not officially bought Quest yet.* Already in ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsBirthBySleep''. There was a change in a scene: Where the Wicked Queen made the mirror attack Terra. In the Japanese version, she shouted at it and her anger possessed the mirror, whereas in the other versions, she throws a potion (off-screen) and that makes the mirror become angry. This may actually be explainable...even when people were showing off the Japanese version on Website/YouTube, 3/5 out of ''every'' comment on that Japanese scene was "Wow, she sounds constipated" or "Boy, she sounds like she has to take a dump, doesn't she?" still this hasn't stopped people from assuming they censored a mirror breaking.** While they made the scopes on the Braig fight look more fantastical and didn't show him fusing his gun into a sniper rifle...of all things, the part where you see Braig's ''bloody cheek'' was left intact. People ''already'' anticipated ''that'' scene to have been censored. (''Thankfully'' not his [[{{Squick}} eye damage]].)* The infamous "laughing scene" in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyX'', in which Tidus and Yuna laugh like crazy people, is often held up as an example of terrible English dubbing because they sounded "fake". In actuality, not only do they sound ''just'' as fake and over the top in the Japanese version, this was ''the entire point of the laughing scene'' (specifically, to show that Tidus, at that point in the game, can't feign happiness very well). Note both of the characters laughing (normally) at how ridiculous they sound a second later. The other characters thought [[YoureInsane they'd gone out of their minds]] - this would require context, however, when the scene is always brought up completely void of such.* While Creator/{{Capcom}} does have a well-earned reputation for [[BlindIdiotTranslation bad translations]] of games in the '90s, they are sometimes blamed for some they didn't do. In the case of the ''Franchise/BreathOfFire'' series, they are often accused of creating an InconsistentDub due to certain names in the first game being altered in later entries. This was actually the result of the first game being localized in the US by [[Creator/SquareEnix Squaresoft]], who changed names with little rhyme or reason. The later games were handled by Capcom and they usually reverted to the Japanese names in future titles.** More specifically, Capcom USA has been the subject of a lot of heat for their English translations of the company's Japanese-developed games, which typically mangle not only the dialogue but also the canon for some games, ''Franchise/StreetFighter'' in particular. A [[http://www.capcom-unity.com/ask_capcom/go/thread/view/7371/20130381/Seth_Skill_your_wisdom_is_needed_in_order_to_-%20resolve_a_concern_about_Capcom_USA&post_num=2#346948685 revelation]] from former Capcom USA Senior Vice President, however, reveals that ''Capcom of Japan'' is responsible for the botched English translations that made their way overseas for years. Which begs the question of [[FridgeLogic why a Japanese company would mix-up the translation of dialogue and plot written in their native language just for outsiders]].*** One has to consider that some of the ''Street Fighter'' games from the mid-to-late 1990s had American staff members working on them, so they had more input. However, most of the quotes and endings in the games, while a bit embellished sometimes (Guile never mentions Cambodia or Charlie in the Japanese version), had mostly accurate translations. Endings that were truly different, like Cammy's and Fei Long's, were often the exceptions rather than the rule.* ''WebVideo/TheAngryVideoGameNerd'''s review of the NES [[PortingDisaster port]] of ''VideoGame/MetalGear'' involved him complaining about butchery of a 'great game'. Among the features he complained about were the fact that you can't open a door and wear your gas mask at the same time, forcing you to sacrifice some health when you enter or leave a gassy room, which was a design flaw of the original game not really fixed until ''VideoGame/{{Metal Gear Solid 2|Sons Of Liberty}}''. He also complained about Big Boss prefacing his misleading hints with the phrase 'I forgot to tell you...', claiming it was a terrible translation -- not only was this a better translation than the one in the European MSX version of the game, but Big Boss's hints really were supposed to be [[AnnoyingVideoGameHelper useless and annoying]] for plot reasons, similar to the ''Castlevania'' "graveyard duck" hint.* Again, one of the many complaints lodged against ''Snake's Revenge'' is that the translation tells you the opposite of what you have to do during the train level ("THERE IS NO TRAP ON THE TRAIN" has become a semi-meme). Of course, the sequence was a deliberate callback to ''VideoGame/MetalGear'' since it happens immediately before the person giving you the hints turns out to be [[TreacherousAdvisor a spy trying to make you fail]], who you then fight in a boss battle.** Also, a lot of ''Franchise/MetalGear'' fans who never actually play the NES version of the game accuse it of having a silly plot in comparison to the "serious" storyline in the original [=MSX2=] version, replacing the original BigBad of Big Boss, an American soldier turned renegade mercenary, with Vermon [=CaTaffy=], a pastiche of real-life dictator Muammar al-Gaddafi. In truth, Konami's American manuals back in the day tended to feature weird plot changes (as evident by the American manuals for the early ''Franchise/{{Castlevania}}'', ''VideoGame/{{Contra}}'', and ''VideoGame/{{Gradius}}'' games) that thankfully did not affect the games themselves. The NES version of ''Metal Gear'', despite its BlindIdiotTranslation quality, is almost identical to the [=MSX2=] version in terms of plot aside for a few minor differences and Big Boss is still the BigBad in the NES version. The non-canon ''Snake's Revenge'' also featured a similar discrepancy between the game and its manual, with the manual identifying the bad guy as Higharolla Kockamamie (another pastiche, this time of Ayatollah Khomeini), but the actual villain of the game is revealed to be a cyborg Big Boss.* ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid: The Twin Snakes'' often gets a lot of scorn for its cutscenes, most of the blame is directed towards Ryuhei Kitimura, who directed the scenes. However, ''every scene that Kitimura included was approved by Creator/HideoKojima'', and Kitimura was chosen specifically for his over-the-top nature (Kitimura himself originally intended to make a much more faithful adaptation of the source material, but changed it when Kojima himself rejected his initial rendition of the Hind-D fight cutscenes and requested that he instead do it in his trademark over-the-top style). * Many people who played the fan-translated version of ''VideoGame/MetalGear2SolidSnake'' assumed that the name of the enemy boss "Black Color", a misromanization of "Blackcollar", was a mistake by the fan translators. In reality, that's how it was spelled in the actual Japanese version (all of the bosses' names in the game were written in roman script).** ''Metal Gear Solid 2'' also gets a lot of blame for its rather absurd storyline placed on the translator/localizer, Agness Kaku. As [[https://web.archive.org/web/20120125211117/http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/metalgear/agnesskaku.htm this interview reveals,]] saying that Konami was very unhelpful with regards to translation and localization is a ''huge understatement''.* Continuing on with ''Metal Gear'', for a case of character misblaming, whenever anyone brings up why ''Metal Gear Solid 2'' was the weakest in the series, it is always attributed to one thing -- Raiden. While Raiden's involvement does weaken things considerably, the shameless backtracking, lack of great boss fights and ditching of any sense of coherence all had nothing to do with him.* Creator/ElectronicArts receives a lot of flak for their exclusive license to make games with National Football League players and teams, with many gamers believing that EA simply threw a lot of money at the NFL to get the license. In fact, [[http://money.cnn.com/2004/12/14/commentary/game_over/column_gaming/ the NFL took bids from a number of video game companies]] before ''awarding'' the contract to EA. Gamers, however, deny this, believing that the league would never willingly enter such anti-competitive agreements -- never mind that the NFL's own actions in regards to [[http://consumerist.com/5185430/nfl-sunday-ticket-will-remain-directv-exclusive-until-2014 television distribution]] and [[http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2009/09/18/american-needle-throws-downfield-in-nfl-licensing-dispute/ apparel licensing]] indicates that they not only willingly agree to, but also ''encourage'' these kinds of licensing deals.** EA still may not be totally blameless in this area, as their similarly exclusive deals with the NCAA and Arena Football League seem to indicate they have no problem pursuing exclusive rights (these and the NFL deal are all part of a California-based class action suit against the company). Of course, it may be possible that the AFL and NCAA simply follow the same hardball tactics as the NFL.** And let's not even get started on the fans of Creator/BioWare games who are convinced that any "dumbing down" of RPG mechanics or DLC offers are all the nefarious influence of EA having bought them, and might not just be [=BioWare=] themselves trying to streamline their games and give the players more content that might not have been available otherwise.*** Speaking of [=BioWare=], EA was one of the major suspects to blame for ''VideoGame/MassEffect3'' ending that almost unanimously considered as terrible in the fandom. This despite the fact that EA had little to do with the creative process and it was mostly [=BioWare=]'s work to begin with. At worst EA may have indirectly been responsible for the ''implementation'' of the ending (in particular how rushed and perfunctory it seemed prior to the Extended Cut DLC), but the fact that [[spoiler:Shepard dies in nearly every ending variation]] was entirely the choice of the lead developers.*** Microing down even further, a self-proclaimed writer for the game came out and said that most of the writing staff were cut out of the development of the final part of the story [[spoiler: where Shepard meets the Catalyst]], with lead writer Mac Walters and executive producer Casey Hudson writing it exclusively themselves without any input from the rest of the writing staff. Whether this is true or not is up to contention, but it certainly caused a stir in an already hot topic discussion.** EA in general catches a lot of flack for "ruining" companies they buy up, but in many cases, prior to the purchase said companies weren't all that profitable, and in some cases they couldn't do what they did without EA's money. FullMotionVideo ''VideoGame/WingCommander'' and ''VideoGame/UltimaOnline'' were feasible only with financial support from EA, as Origin prior to being bought by EA[[note]]around the time of the release of [=WC2=]: Secret Operations 1; EA involvement with Origin is, in other words, [[OlderThanTheyThink older than the fandom thinks]][[/note]] was, at best, "holding on", financially, in spite of the critical acclaim of their games.*** Also funny, take a look at the publisher for ''VideoGame/SystemShock 2''. Notice anything? Yep. EA. Guess whose idea it was to make it a sequel to ''System Shock''? EA. AccentuateTheNegative at its finest.** They are often criticized for releasing essentially the same ''VideoGame/MaddenNFL'' game with updated rosters year after year. While this is arguably true, ''football itself'' doesn't really change from year to year.** At a Q&A session at Dragon Con 2014, Richard Garriott went on record saying that blame for the quality of ''VideoGame/UltimaVIII'' should be spread around between himself and EA, stating that if he could go back and 'fix' just one game, that would be it. EA had been around no longer than Origin, but was far more (financially) successful, so Garriott assumed they knew what they were doing and didn't object when they insisted he cut his game to the bone (to the point where the cloth map no longer made sense) in order to make its release date. The problem was that EA had been making money by constantly updating the ''Madden'' engine (among others) and consistently releasing the latest version in time for football season, so they were anal about scheduling. This was...less than good for a complex action RPG. Of course, ''VideoGame/UltimaIX'' was the result of ExecutiveMeddling pulling much of the staff to work on ''VideoGame/UltimaOnline'' (which was dismissed as a dead concept before the paid beta). The cancelled sequel to ''Ultima Online'' was also against Garriott's wishes, who said it would be cancelled within a year and wanted to make ''VideoGame/WingCommander Online'' instead.* It's common knowledge that the game released as ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyAdventure'' in America was in fact known as ''Seiken Densetsu'' in Japan, and was the first entry in what's now known as the ''VideoGame/WorldOfMana'' series in America. It's also "common knowledge" that the name was only given the ''Final Fantasy'' title in America to make it more marketable. Except that the game's Japanese name was actually ''Seiken Densetsu: Final Fantasy Gaiden''. All the localization really did to the name was drop the ''Final Fantasy'' supertitle and change "[[GaidenGame Sidestory]]" into "Adventure".** Since ''Final Fantasy Adventure'' contains Moogles, chocobos, an airship, the four elemental Fiends, main villains whose visual designs are both based off Garland (both his overworld and his battle screen sprite, which in FF1 looked radically different from each other) and one NPC that looks a lot like a Red Mage, either this is a ''Final Fantasy'' game or the designers changed a lot more than just the title.* [[FanDumb 80's elitists]] of the ''Franchise/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles'' are angry at Creator/{{Ubisoft}} for not including any 80's cartoon characters in ''VideoGame/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtlesSmashUp''. [[http://forums.ubi.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/9261054957/m/9901001297 The truth]] is, the people at Mirage Studios specifically told Ubisoft to stick to the 2003 series as the basis for the game. In fact, Ubisoft actually ''defied'' that directive and stuck the Technodrome in as a background object in one of the stages.* Some people thought that ''VideoGame/{{Loom}}'' was uncompleted for several reasons...either '''a)''', because ''Franchise/StarWars'' games made more money, or '''b)''' nobody bought it. The actual reason for not finishing Loom is way different. No, Creator/LucasArts didn't abandon it in favour of Star Wars...this was in the early 90s when point and click adventure games like ''Loom'' were all the rage and cash cows, especially when the NostalgiaFilter kicked in about 10 years later. And the sale figures ''certainly'' were not showing lack of public interest...Even one of the developers said it wasn't. Loom sold over 500,000 copies at the time of the interview - at a time when that was very impressive. But why was there no ''Loom 2: Forge'' despite that Lucas Arts would only benefit from another one, and fans would support it? The developers all got caught-up in different projects.* The Circle of Eight mod for ''VideoGame/TheTempleOfElementalEvil'' garnered complaints from fans for including a [[VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII Buster Sword]]. The sword model was actually in the core game, used by a bugged sword that [[DummiedOut can only be accessed by console]].* While it is true that MLB, NFL, and the other leagues forced ''VideoGame/BackyardSports'' to keep going, some reviewers put the blame on the leagues for making the series JumpTheShark by taking the games in a different direction. It wasn't even Creator/{{Atari}}, the publishing company, who did it. The real culprit is Humongous, Inc., a company formed out of the last remnants of Humongous Entertainment (who started the series); an employee said so in an interview.** Similarly, a lot of people like to blame Atari for the two 2003 Junior Adventures being unfaithful to the predecessors and being plagued with certain faults. The truth of the matter here is Atari was only their ''parent company'' at the time, and Humongous hadn't even gone bankrupt yet -- that happened two years later. They were actually made after half of the Humongous workforce was laid off, and they still had yet to recover from deep financial trouble, this the reason the voice acting was subpar.* [[WebAnimation/ZeroPunctuation Yahtzee]] is guilty of this in his review for ''VideoGame/TheConduit''. He blamed all his issues with the game, such as the default control scheme on ''Nintendo'' -- when they didn't even ''make'' the game in the first place!** He also made this mistake in reverse in his ''VideoGame/MetroidOtherM'' review. He blamed Team Ninja rather than Nintendo, who were responsible for everything he criticized.* Valve was complained at for breaking a promise to release something for ''VideoGame/TeamFortress2'' on November 11th, 2009, which was also Veteran's Day. Only Valve never even hinted at the possibility of anything being released anytime that week. People started thinking Valve was going to do something, and people jumped on the bandwagon.** The Cold Stream DLC had been delayed for several months, causing Xbox 360 players to blame Valve for delaying the DLC for so long and demand that they should be allowed to help in testing the beta for free or release the DLC for free. Valve isn't entirely without fault, but the rest of the blame falls on Microsoft. Not only Valve has to make sure Cold Stream can run on the Xbox 360 without trouble, but Microsoft's DLC policies prevent Valve from giving Xbox 360 owners constant updates for a beta product and it is Microsoft that determines the pricing for DLC, not Valve.* The fact that ''VideoGame/ConkersBadFurDay'' (amongst other demanded games) isn't on the Wii's VirtualConsole seems to lead to people pointing fingers at Nintendo. One would honestly think that fans would actually be bothered to ''look'' at the developer ''and'' publishers for the Nintendo 64 game... Creator/{{Rare}}. Sure, they were second-party at the time of ''Conker's Bad Fur Day'', but in 2002, they were bought out by Microsoft. Which is why there is a ''Conker'' game on the Xbox, not to mention ''VideoGame/KameoElementsOfPower'' and ''VideoGame/PerfectDark Zero'' as launch titles, and the original ''Perfect Dark'' later rereleased on Xbox Live Arcade. Nintendo had no involvement with ''Conker's Bad Fur Day''.** This, compounded by throwing Creator/{{Activision}} into the mix as well (as they owned the ''Film/JamesBond'' video game license throughout that console generation), is also the reason why ''VideoGame/GoldenEye1997'' isn't on the Virtual Console or Xbox Live Arcade - every attempt ended with one or more of the three parties refusing whatever the current plan was, sometimes for what seemed to be no other reason than deliberately preventing the game from being rereleased. [[VideoGame/GoldenEyeWii Hence Activision choosing to remake the game instead]].* Some people seem to think that Mallow and Geno, characters from ''VideoGame/SuperMarioRPG'' should have been in ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBros Brawl'', and that Nintendo was stupid for not putting them in and instead using "X retarded character" (R.O.B. being the favorite target). This would probably have had some merit... had they actually been owned ''by'' Nintendo. They were, like ''Super Mario RPG'', created by Squaresoft (now Creator/SquareEnix). Even when Geno made a cameo appearance in ''VideoGame/MarioAndLuigiSuperstarSaga'', they stated that Geno was copyright Square Enix.** Many ''VideoGame/ChronoTrigger'' fans were angered that the DS translation was less faithful to the original. While this is true concerning the original English version, it's actually closer to the Japanese script. For instance, Frog didn't speak in YeOldeButcheredeEnglishe (or Butchered Japanese as the case may be) in the original script.* A variation/mixture of types 3 and 4 happened with ''VideoGame/JakAndDaxterTheLostFrontier''. A different company was responsible for developing it, which is why it (the plot, mostly) gained so much ire from the fans. However, if one would take time to watch the credits, one would find that those responsible for the story were the series' original creators. However, the same original creator had already worked on the title 3-4 years before its eventual release, before scrapping the project. Clearly someone realised their efforts would be best spent elsewhere.* Creator/ShigeruMiyamoto (yes, even him) is blamed for the lack of ''VideoGame/DonkeyKongCountry'' characters in ''[[VideoGame/DonkeyKongJungleBeat Jungle Beat]]'' and the general sorry state of the franchise based on an old interview where he bashed the first ''DKC''. That despite that he later apologized for the outburst in a later interview, saying that ExecutiveMeddling pressured him into putting 3D graphics like ''DKC'' had in ''VideoGame/YoshisIsland'' and that he also produced and supervised the two ''VideoGame/DKKingOfSwing'' games and ''VideoGame/DonkeyKongBarrelBlast'', all of which feature DKC characters. For example, the CanonDisContinuity page for video games credited the infamous "DKC characters aren't fresh enough" line to him even though it was actually Yoshiaki Koizumi (one of Jungle Beat's two directors) who said that. As if all the prior evidence wasn't enough, after the reveal of ''VideoGame/DonkeyKongCountryReturns'', Miyamoto finally addressed that the idea of him hating ''DKC'' was nothing but a rumor. In fact, what he's controlled in the development of ''DKCR'' (like ''demanding'' that the music emulates the original tunes) seems to indicate that he ''loved'' it.** A lot of people seem to misblame Rare for no Kremlings in some games (a.k.a. ''Donkey Kong Country Returns''), mistakenly thinking Rare still owns them or something. No they don't, Kremlings and many other enemy characters have been in ''VideoGame/DonkeyKonga'', ''VideoGame/DKKingOfSwing'', ''VideoGame/DonkeyKongJungleClimber'', ''VideoGame/DonkeyKongBarrelBlast'' and every rerelease of the original trilogy known to man, and they got sent to Nintendo with everything else in the ''VideoGame/DonkeyKongCountry'' series. No, they just wanted a bit of a change to try something new.* A common complaint about Capcom's localization of the ''Franchise/AceAttorney'' series is the claim that despite the games being centered around murder mysteries and not shy about depicting brutal killings (including one ''[[ImpaledWithExtremePrejudice impalement]]''), there are frequent references to "grape juice" which appear to be an obvious [[{{Bowdlerise}} Bowdlerization]] of [[FrothyMugsOfWater wine]]. Oddly enough, it's grape juice in the Japanese version as well.* Creator/LJNToys has taken a lot of bad reaction (such as from WebVideo/TheAngryVideoGameNerd) for the terrible video games that they've put their name on, but in reality the number of games they developed in-house can probably be counted on one hand. While they were clearly doing ''something'' wrong (likely forcing development schedules that were way too short) to have such a large amount of [[TheProblemWithLicensedGames bad licensed games]] in their catalogue, according to Creator/LordKat in his video on the ''Film/WhoFramedRogerRabbit'' NES game, the actual main culprit may be surprising:-->"Now a lot of people associate these terrible movie-based licensed games with LJN, [but] ''they're'' just the publishers. The real criminals here are the beloved Rare. ''[[Videogame/ANightmareOnElmStreetNES A Nightmare on Elm Street]]'', ''Film/WhoFramedRogerRabbit'', ''Film/TheAmazingSpiderMan'', ''Beetlejuice''... In fact, if you take out the LJN component, Rare has made a lot more garbage ''without'' them. So to all you Nintendo fanboys who cream themselves over ''VideoGame/{{Battletoads}}'' and ''VideoGame/DonkeyKong64'', kiss my fat wide ass; Rare ruined my childhood."** Some of LJN's games pre-Rare were developed in Japan by a then mostly unknown company known as... Creator/{{Atlus}}.** The ''Videogame/FridayThe13th'' game was developed by Japanese VHS distributor Pack-In Video, which also made ''Die Hard'', ''Rambo'', and ''Predator'' games.** The WebVideo/AngryVideoGameNerd addressed the publishing issue in Episode 121: "Beetlejuice".* Xbox Live's userbase has been misblamed for the creation of the "juvenile and unfriendly" gamer. Apparently people haven't heard of the theory of {{GIFT}}, which has been in existence long before the Xbox. Live just brought the issue to light if anything. And when it's not Xbox Live that gets all the criticism for this, it's always something like ''VideoGame/CounterStrike'' or ''VideoGame/{{Quake}}''.** Within UsefulNotes/XboxLiveArcade, games like ''Franchise/{{Halo}}'' and ''VideoGame/CallOfDuty'' get disproportionately blamed for this.* Related to the above, whenever you mention Gold-selling in-game advertisements or gold farmers, most people often think it's exclusive to ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'', or that it actually ''started'' that practice. No, the practice didn't ''start'' in that game, it's been around since ''VideoGame/UltimaOnline'', for that matter, gold farming and people buying gold was present in the original ''VideoGame/EverQuest'' and ''VideoGame/RagnarokOnline''. The only reason you hear about it in ''World of Warcraft'' so much is because the game has ''millions of players''.** In fact, if you check some of the larget gold-selling websites you can see that gold selling isn't ''just'' limited to ''World of Warcraft'', ''VideoGame/WarhammerOnline'' had Gold spammers since day one, as did ''Aion Online''. And on some servers of ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXI'', you almost ''had'' to buy gold. And not even ''VideoGame/RuneScape'' was immune to it!* Class nerfs are always a source of utmost ire in any MMO, but among the ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'' fanbase, most nerfs are usually directly blamed towards Greg "Ghostcrawler" or a few other choice devs, when in fact the changes are discussed in advance by a group of all the devs well in advance.** The [=CMs=] (community managers) also get a ton of hate for said nerfs, while ghostcrawler is at least a dev, most of the [=CMs=] are just forum moderators (trying) to keep the boards a place of intelligent discussion and not constant flaming and fighting.* The start of ''Cataclysm'' was plagued by all sorts of bugs and glitches, among them a near ''ridiculous'' respawn rate where a mob you just killed would respawn while you were looting it or suddenly reappear attacking you while you were walking away. This was apparently Blizzard's intention; but in actuality it was a programming oversight made to avert one of the things that had happened around ''Burning Crusade'' where the mob respawn rates were actually ''too high'' and people would camp required mobs.* Game Masters/Moderators in almost any online game tend to get blamed for every single occurrence that rubs any player the wrong way and are expected to fix every technical problem and rectify every balance issue on their own.* The North American version of the ''VideoGame/DeathSmiles'' UsefulNotes/{{Xbox 360}} port got a lot of flak for [[DifficultyByRegion having less slowdown than the Japanese versions]], and some decided to point fingers at Aksys Games, who did the localization. In a [[http://www.aksysgames.com/forums/topic/732 forum post on the official Aksys website]], an Aksys employee clarified that all of the programming for the North American version--the reduced slowdown included--was Creator/{{Cave}}'s doing.* Creator/TimSchafer is a Type 5 and Type 2 for ''VideoGame/BrutalLegend''. Double Fine has received nearly all the blame for "falsely advertising" Brutal Legend and hiding the hybrid of Action and RealTimeStrategy. One angry player messaged Tim Schafer directly on Twitter and called him a liar publicly. He told the complainer that was all he talked about for months. It was Electronic Arts' advertising that mislead consumers (and reviewers) to believe it was single player focused, to the point that it drowned out the voice of Double Fine. To this day, Tim Schafer says that the reviews remain high on Metacritic, and can be divided between those who ATTEMPTED multiplayer, and those who didn't even touch it.* Richard Garriott gets Misblamed for ''a lot'' of things surrounding "Richard Garriott's ''VideoGame/TabulaRasa''", despite his role merely being Executive Producer. It's often claimed that he arrogantly decided to plaster his name on the box, when it was more likely a marketing decision to hype up a game that wasn't very famous and had been sitting in [[{{Vaporware}} Development Hell]] for some years. He's often insulted and blamed for many of game's problems due to him going to space during the game's life. Not only did he pay for the flight with his own money, but his Executive Producer role was probably hardly missed during the trip, and the trip ended up being tied into a marketing campagin anyway, which arguably ''did'' help the game (though clearly not enough). Finally, Richard Garriott ended up suing the publisher, Creator/NCSoft themselves, after a letter of resignation came out that he claimed he didn't write and was forged by them to pressure him into leaving without an investment he was due. He won the case.* Hideaki Itsuno, who is credited as director in all the ''Franchise/DevilMayCry'' sequels, is often seen as the quintessential example of a game designer redeeming himself in the eyes of his fans due to how he seemingly recovered from the failure of ''[=DMC2=]'' by working on its two {{Surprisingly Improved Sequel}}s. In reality, Itsuno had little involvement with ''[=DMC2=]'', as he was assigned to the project late during development to salvage what he could after the previous director was fired by Capcom.** The much reviled redesign of Dante in ''[[VideoGame/DMCDevilMayCry DmC: Devil May Cry]]'' has caused a lot fan outrage. Nearly all of it was directed at Ninja Theory (who Capcom handed the series for said reboot's production), but Ninja Theory is only partly responsible, as the redesign was done at Capcom's request and approval. Sadly, lead designer Tameem Antoniades' [[http://www.1up.com/do/previewPage?cId=3181535 response]] [[http://bitmob.com/articles/should-developers-listen-to-their-fans to the fans]] has done little to diffuse this situation.* Team Ninja is solely blamed for how Samus' personality is and how the game is totally different from the rest of the games in the Metroid games in ''VideoGame/MetroidOtherM''. Team Ninja just did the programming and combat system design. It was the co-creator of Metroid, Yoshio Sakamoto, who wanted to apply all the changes and personally wrote the scenario.** Similarly, critics have tended to attribute Samus' lack of emotion in her voice to Jessica Martin's poor acting skills, when it was actually Yoshio Sakamoto who specifically asked for Samus to sound robotic in order to reflect the effects her tragic past and occupation have had on her personality. Contrast the majority of the narration with the scenes where Samus gets emotional over [[spoiler:Ian's imminent death, Ridley's appearance, and Adam's sacrifice]], and you'll see that Jessica Martin's acting covers more than just DullSurprise.*** On the other hand, Creator/AiKobayashi doesn't nearly receive such a huge InternetBackdraft in the Japanese version, which most fans consider to be an appropriate approach to the character.*** Also, Team Ninja's director, despite getting a lot of the blame, is in fact a Metroid fan (even contributing along side Jessica in celebrating the series' 25th Anniversary) and in an interview criticized Sakamoto by pointing out that anyone who said something else would be more effective (most notably, they were against the controversial control scheme) were shot down instantly by him.* Reggie, president of Nintendo of America, is a mix of type 2 and 5. Reggie is blamed for not improving the Wii's infrastructure, for withholding potentially good games for the Wii, and is also blamed for not releasing VideoGame/EarthBound on the virtual console. Reggie hardly has any influence over what he can do to Nintendo as a whole since the true big boss of Nintendo is the people over at Nintendo of Japan, where they can decide on what to do with the Wii and what games other regions can receive (while Reggie can have a say on whether or not consumers in his region can get a certain game, he does not have a say for every game). As for Earthbound's case, the reason it took until 2013 to be re-released outside Japan is because Nintendo simply believed there was no interest for the game.* The late Gunpei Yokoi, famous for creating the Nintendo Game and Watch, Famicom/NES, the Game Boy/Game Boy Pocket, and the Metroid series, was solely blamed for the failure of his last Nintendo creation, the Virtual Boy. Yokoi wanted to wait until technology improved before releasing the Virtual Boy, namely the addition of color screens, but Nintendo pulled the project out of his hands and rushed the product to store shelves before it was complete, to fill the gap between the end of the SNES, and the beginnings of the Nintendo 64. After its failure, Yokoi was blamed for the entire fiasco. Though despite the common myth that still floats around to the day, Yokoi's resignation wasn't because of the Virtual Boy's failure, he had actually planned to retire ''earlier'', but postponed it because he felt like if he left immediately after its financial flop, it would leave no question he resigned because of it.* The translators of ''VideoGame/{{Okami}}'' are often blamed for the bizarre dichotomy that the manual for the game treats Amaterasu as genderless, while the actual game makes her fairly clearly female. Apparently, this was also the case in the Japanese version.* The Creator/FourKidsEntertainment voice actors are mainly trashed for the crappy scripts, story-lines and general badness of the [[Franchise/SonicTheHedgehog Sonic]] games from 2005 to 2010. This, however, is an extremely unfair judgement seeing as how Creator/JasonGriffith and the other actors only provided the voices for these parts and never even involved in writing the stories or scripts. All they did was voice the lines they were given.** A key example of this the the infamous line: "It looks like being a princess isn't that easy" from Sonic 2006. Jason was trashed like hell for this god awful line. While it's true that the line wasn't well delivered, the fact that people were actually blaming the line itself on him was taking things to far.** Sega themselves even stated once that they blame previous voice actor of Sonic, Ryan Drummond, for the fact that fans were complaining...Seriously. That's like firing a clerk then blaming them when the replacement turns out to be crap.** Another example: Now retired voice actor to Tails, Amy Palant, was reported to have been sent death threats after her performance in Sonic 06. She apparently stated that the threats were based around the poor story and how Tails plays a crap role to which she stated she had no part in. Seriously, if your gonna threaten someone then at least know who to threaten.** A non-dialogue related example is the creation of "Mobius". Many blame Sega of America for making such a place instead of staying true to the Japanese continuation, but the Sonic games were written with the intent of having a loose storyline; so that different regions can make their own versions of the story.** [[ScapegoatCreator Dimps]] is not responsible for the odd-sounding music in the ''Sonic the Hedgehog 4'' series; that would be Jun Senoue, who even then was disallowed from programming the music on an actual Genesis/Mega Drive due to ExecutiveMeddling.* Contrary to popular belief, ''VideoGame/LeagueOfLegends'' actually ''does'' have different people working on different aspects of the game -- most notably the champion designers, maintenance people, and the map designers. Whenever Riot announces a new champion, the cries are often "Why can't you fix the lag/servers?" or "Where's the Magma Chamber?".* In a spectacularly brutal inversion of this, Capcom's European branch [[http://www.themmnetwork.com/2011/07/20/capcom-europe-its-a-shame-the-fans-didnt-want-to-get-more-involved/ has blamed]] ''VideoGame/MegaManLegends 3'''s cancellation on the fans, for not giving enough support on the devroom. Despite the fact that Capcom didn't even release the prototype (which was ''supposed to get made for obtaining fan response'') in the first place. Needless to say, no one in the fanbase was fooled. Things only got worse, when they tried to [[DiggingYourselfDeeper clear confusion over the actual statement]][[note]]Would someone please elaborate here?[[/note]]...* A case of a fan mis-blaming other fans, a [[http://lparchive.org/Mega-Man-Battle-Network/Update%2006/ Let's Play]] of [[VideoGame/MegaManBattleNetwork [=MMBN1=] ]] criticized some players for not knowing what is a Program Advance (P.A.) because they didn't talk to [=NPCs=] who mentions about it all the time even to the point of telling them off they need to be spoonfed with P.A. tutorials. The problem is that it's not that they didn't know about ''what'' it is, [[GuideDangIt they actually didn't know]] ''[[GuideDangIt which]]'' [[GuideDangIt Battle Chip combinations form what kind of P.A. at the first place]][[note]] No excuse for Zeta-Cannon and [=LifeSword=] though since they're actually mentioned.[[/note]] To make matters worse some P.A.s might get carried over to the next game but require different chips. It's like the ''Franchise/HarvestMoon'' recipes, except that nobody is talking about specific chip combinations [[note]] other than Zeta-Cannon and [=LifeSword=][[/note]] in the games.* ''VideoGame/HarvestMoon'' fans often blame Natsume, who are simply the localizers and translators in the Americans, for certain problems that were present in the Japanese versions. However Natsume has such a bad rep because they've caused so many glitches with the games, they change parts of the games, and their translations are often butchered.* Much of the "new" script for ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIV'' actually is OlderThanTheyThink -- the game was released with 75% of the intended script cut. Subsequent remakes have decided to restore some of the cuts.* VideoGame/TheSims fans generally try to avert this by referring to "EAxis", when it's not known if a problem is EA's fault or Maxis'.* ''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIVOblivion'' is sometimes blamed for changing a bizarre Tamriel into a MedievalEuropeanFantasy. Much of these complaints stem from the fact that the elven provinces, as well as Cyrodiil, had quite a few non-European traits that originated in older games like ''Redguard'' or ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIIIMorrowind Morrowind]]''. For example, Cyrodiil was a jungle, had large rice fields, had a vaguely Tenochtitlan like capital, and had a strong tattoo culture. While those complaints may be justified, some seem to think that all of Tamriel lacked traits from MedievalEuropeanFantasy.** Bethesda took a bit of heat during the Nude Mod debacle... despite it being a fan-produced mod that manipulated textures rather than exploiting some hidden feature as some commentators claimed.** ''Morrowind'' fans tend to single out Bethesda's Todd Howard for the design choices in ''Oblivion'' and ''Skyrim'' that they don't like, even though the last game that he was in a lead design role for was... ''Morrowind''.** A cross-media example for the franchise - in the two tie-in novels (''The Infernal City'' and ''Lord of Souls''), it's related that a few years after the events of ''Oblivion'', the province of Morrowind was effectively obliterated. A large meteor that Vivec had frozen mid-fall had resumed its flight - without having lost any of its velocity - and struck Vivec City with enough force to cause Red Mountain to erupt, rendering vast swaths of the province (which many fans still think of fondly from the game set there) to be destroyed and rendered uninhabitable. Many fans blamed the books' author, Greg Keyes, for this change to the setting. In reality; this string of events was heavily foreshadowed within ''Morrowind'' itself by Michael Kirkbride roughly a decade before the novels were released.* ''VideoGame/CastleOfShikigami II'' was released in the US with notoriously bad translation. Turns out that although the translation wasn't great, the original was incomprehensible as well.* ''Franchise/TombRaider'' fans often blame Creator/CoreDesign for the fact that the sixth installment (and the last installment of the [[ContinuityReboot original continuity]]), ''[[VideoGame/TombRaiderAngelOfDarkness The Angel of Darkness]]'', was released in a clearly unfinished state. As it turned out, [[ExecutiveMeddling publisher Eidos]] [[http://kteb.net/wp/core-design/ pestered Core Design]] [[http://kteb.net/wp/core-design/behind-the-scenes/ to rush the game in spite of the fact that Core were unhappy with it]], and if they didn't get it out on time, they would be fired. They released the game, it failed, and Eidos fired Core anyway.* While Creator/{{Konami}} has displayed their fair share of incompetence in handling Franchise/{{Bemani}} games outside of East Asia, they also tend to get blamed for things that weren't actually their fault -- many of the screwups with ''VideoGame/DanceDanceRevolution'' series from ''DDR [=SuperNOVA=]'' onwards in the US are the fault of Betson, which Konami contracted to handle distribution of the series stateside. Others were because they were ScrewedByTheLawyers of the music industry. Then there was the disastrous attempt at a nationwide official DDR tournament in 2009, where they made the mistake of partnering with [=GameWorks=], which then proceeded to screw up the tournament in every way imaginable and then some.* Jack Thompson attacked Take-Two on two occasions for content in games it published. Both times he insisted that Take-Two was the company to create the content, rather than the independent publishers:** The first incident was the infamous "Hot Coffee" discovery in ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoSanAndreas''. The game was developed by Rockstar Entertainment.*** Rockstar itself was hit with this for the same thing - they were forced to rerelease the game with the "Hot Coffee" content completely removed (even going out of their way to make sure ''no'' mods could be installed[[note]]unsurprisingly, one of the most popular downloads for the non-Steam PC version is a down-grade patch for people who want to play ''Multi Theft Auto''[[/note]]), despite the content having already been DummiedOut and only becoming public knowledge by way of a GameMod that ''nobody would be forced to download''.** The second incident was the less famous "Nude Mod" for ''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIVOblivion''. The game was developed by Bethesda Softworks and, as mentioned previously, it was the product of a fan, not the studio.* On the topic of ''Grand Theft Auto'', many fans initially blame the character striping glitch in [[VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoV Grand Theft Auto Online]] on Rockstar themselves. ''It was actually caused by bugs in [=NVidia's=] drivers'', and a driver update fixed the issue (unfortunately, certain hardware configurations and cards older than the [=GTX400=] series ''cannot'' use the update...). ** Additionally, the radio music in GTAV is often considered bland and the fans blame Rockstar again for this. No, Rockstar actually outsourced the music choices to the [=DJs=] who they hired to host the stations. Kenny Loggins was responsible for the choices of the songs on ''Los Santos Rock Radio'' for example. * Creator/{{SNK}} and other associated companies aren't exempt from this, either. As one of the chara designes for ''VideoGame/TheKingOfFighters'', Nona often flak for the most recent entries in the series, due to their new art designs. While he ''was'' the art director for XII (and draws for the pre-fight exchanges in XIII), it's actually Ogura Eisuke, the artist for ''Neo Geo Battle Coliseum'', who handled the artwork. For some odd reason, Nona is also being blamed '''for the story developments''', an area that he has minimal influence in at best. * Overkill Software is heavily blamed for removing some musical pieces in the game ''VideoGame/PAYDAYTheHeist'' and how they should have just paid the music composer of those tracks when it came to the release of the game's soundtrack. In actuality, the 2nd music composer in question is most likely already compensated for his work and the game's main music composer himself had to step in and say that in order for him to release the soundtrack, they had to have all the music be under his name in order to simplify the legal stuff surrounding the soundtrack release since the 2nd composer is not affiliated with Overkill anymore. People still demand for the old tracks to return.** Playstation 3 players that own the game also blame Overkill Software for dragging their feet with updates and patches for the system. While Overkill had promised in the past to try and get the updates out, many players don't realize that Sony charges a ''lot'' of money to developers that wish to update their game on the Playstation 3 (Microsoft has a similar policy with the Xbox 360) and Overkill Software isn't a big budget developer like other game studios such as Valve. Since Overkill was also developing Payday 2 at the same time, it's easy to see where the resources went.*** The problem with patching for the console versions happened again when ''VideoGame/PAYDAY2'' was released. The Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 versions of the game did get patches right up to the Armored Transport DLC, but support for the console versions suddenly stopped and went nearly a year without any updates or patches while the PC version had updates every single month. Console players blamed Overkill for being lazy and slow with the updates while Overkill stated that Microsoft and Sony were to blame because their patches failed certification and had to be redone all over again (and patches in general for consoles get expensive quick) while try to stay within the size limits for patches that were enforced by Sony and Microsoft. News about console patches went quiet for months until mid 2014 when Overkill announced the console versions of PAYDAY 2 would get a major update with lots of new content and bug fixes, though it wouldn't be up to the current PC version. The long delay was also likely due to Overkill implementing a new way to roll out updates and reduce the total size of the game, which would benefit people having little free space on their hard drives and also meeting Sony and Microsoft's stingy patch size restrictions.* Both Sony and Superbot Entertainment of ''VideoGame/PlayStationAllStarsBattleRoyale'' have gotten much hatred for including [[VideoGame/DMCDevilMayCry Reboot Dante]] and [[Franchise/MetalGear Raiden]]. However, the ''Devil May Cry'' and ''Metal Gear'' franchises are respectively owned by Capcom and Konami. Even if Sony and Superbot wanted to add Classic Dante or Solid Snake, Capcom and Konami [[ExecutiveMeddling would use copyright laws to ban their inclusion]].* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII'' gets blamed a lot for making Cloud a whiny emo since it's all people remembered him for apparently. The Cloud character rarely broods over his past problems in the game and he gains a ton of confidence in himself by the end of the game and makes peace with Tifa and Aerith. It was ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVIIAdventChildren'' that depicted Cloud as gloomy and depressed because Square Enix believed that is what the fans remembered him as, despite the fact that it wasn't even part of Cloud's character in the original game! To give Cloud some slack, he was infected with a disease that affected his emotional state.* ''VideoGame/{{Minecraft}}'' is widely known as Notch's creation. He did a lot of things to the game, but hasn't gotten involved with the game at all after the game went gold in 2011. Despite Jeb taking charge of the game and Notch stepping down, many people still think Notch runs the game and blame him if there's a change they don't like.** Speaking of Minecraft, Bethesda is ''routinely'' MisBlamed for "trying to sue Mojang for using 'Scrolls' in a title," generally with some erroneous assumption it was a financial shakedown or product of some completely irrational fear of product confusion. While it's true that there was a copyright dispute pertaining to conflict between Mojang's game "Scrolls" and the game series "The Elder Scrolls", this is incorrect on two major fronts:*** The legally responsible party was not Bethesda, but its parent company, Zenimax.*** Zenimax was often criticized for "trying to claim ownership over the word 'Scrolls'" - when the entire point of the suit was to ''prevent'' someone from doing ''exactly that''. Mojang was attempting to trademark "Scrolls" as a title, which, based on similar past situations, would have given them a potentially abuseable copyright edge over ''any'' other related products incorporating that term in their names. For precedent, look at [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edge_Games the number of times Edge Games has legally shaken down other related entities]] for use of the word "Edge" - and that's ''without'' the trademark simply being the word on its own.* The color of Chain Chomp's mouth in ''VideoGame/SuperMario64'' was changed from red to purple on the VirtualConsole. Many people blamed Nintendo for "censorship", but it turns out that the color change was due to an emulation quirk that affected the mouth texture.* It's widely and mistakenly thought that Nintendo of America refused to release ''VideoGame/SuperMarioBrosTheLostLevels'' stateside due to the belief that Western players couldn't "handle" its high difficulty. By that same token, many other NES games shouldn't have made the cut (after all, the trope is called ''[[TropeNamer Nintendo]]'' [[NintendoHard Hard]]). The real reason was to avoid the pitfalls that caused the videogame market to bottom out in 1983, one of which was creating sequels by [[MissionPackSequel simply tweaking an existing game and slapping a "2" on the end]]. The game's difficulty wasn't exactly appreciated by Japanese audiences, either, who generally prefer gaming for the sake of leisure rather than for an extreme challenge. A look at the DifficultyByRegion page shows that the number of Japanese games made harder for export positively dwarfs the inverse.* Nintendo got mis-blamed in a big way in December of 2013 when an update by Google to YouTube's copyright algorithms caused videos to get unnecessary copyright claims from not just Nintendo, but other major gaming companies like Square Enix, Capcom, and Ubisoft, and even claims from non-gaming sources like Hasbro and Japanese record labels started to pop up. Why did Nintendo catch most of the blame for a YouTube problem? Because unfortunately the first documented cases of this problem occurring seemed to happen with video makers who specialized in Nintendo coverage, with the news that this was a wide spread issue across all of YouTube with many different companies not becoming as well known until later.* This trope tends to haunt [[WebVideo/FeministFrequency Anita Sarkeesian]], who frequently has completely fictitious quotes or opinions attributed to her. A common urban legend has her being hired by EA to advise on the development of VideoGame/MirrorsEdge 2, where she supposedly suggested making the controls easier for women. Absolutely no evidence exists to back this up, and when the rumor started circulating Mirror's Edge 2 had not been announced and may not even have been greenlit yet.** ''Any'' outspoken feminist who happens to be involved with an in-production video game in any way are blamed for trying to force a feminist agenda into the game - see also the brouhaha around Dina Abou Karam being appointed as the community manager for ''VideoGame/MightyNo9''.* Many people talk about the UsefulNotes/SegaDreamcast as though it single-handedly killed Sega's console business, or at least was the biggest individual factor in them pulling out of that market. In actuality, the [[UsefulNotes/SegaSaturn Saturn]] was far more culpable for that, thanks to its huge production costs and abysmal first-party software sales (largely thanks to ''Sonic X-Treme'' dying in DevelopmentHell; the American launch was even worse, between both being released four months earlier than anyone expected [thus ensuring there wasn't really ''anything'' to play at launch] and hiring Bernie Stolar as head of Sega of America [thus ensuring that anything ''good'' probably wouldn't make it to America anyway]). The Dreamcast, by comparison, actually sold respectably well: 11 million in just over two years, compared to 9 million in four years for the Saturn. The console's only real failing was not being able to rescue Sega from the financial hole the Saturn and their various other mid-90s blunders (including the 32X, the Nomad, the Neptune and at least two other aborted consoles) put them in.** Speaking of ''Sonic X-treme'', there's been plenty of misblame thrown around there too, with the most common accusations being that Bernie Stolar killed development when the game was still viable so that he'd have an excuse to ditch the Saturn itself a few months later, or that series co-creator Yuji Naka deliberately sabotaged the American development team so that the game would fall apart and Sega would have to wait until Sonic Team (who at the time were working on ''VideoGame/NightsIntoDreams'') were ready to make the next ''Sonic'' game themselves. In reality though, no one individual can be blamed for how things turned out; development was just a complete train-wreck from start to finish, and by the end of it all the original game director had been fired from Sega due to personality clashes, his replacement had fallen severely ill, and by all accounts the development builds of the game when the plug were pulled were a barely playable mess.* Many fans of ''VideoGame/ToontownOnline'', ''VideoGame/PiratesOfTheCaribbeanOnline'' and ''Pixie Hollow'' blame ''VideoGame/ClubPenguin'' for the closure of those three [=MMOs=]. Actually, Disney closed them due to financial problems.* In ''VideoGame/FireEmblemAwakening'' fandom, before the game was officially brought to the USA, some unofficial translations made the [[BloodKnight Henry]] x [[NoSocialSkills Olivia]] ship extremely popular due to Olivia apparently going "ICanChangeMyBeloved" on Henry. Then the game was released in the West, and the fans went ''berserk'' at how their ship was "ruined" and "made uncute" by the apparent AllGirlsWantBadBoys swing the supports took. '''Then''' Japanese-speakers showed that the translation most shippers based their preferences on was... not entirely accurate anyway. Oops.* Mega Man's appearance in ''VideoGame/StreetFighterXTekken'' has been blamed on Capcom's contempt for the ''Franchise/MegaMan'' franchise and its fans following how things ended between the company and Keiji Inafune. [[http://megaman.wikia.com/wiki/Bad_Box_Art_Mega_Man#Trivia In truth]], Inafune himself requested that as a joke about how the franchise had aged, also saying that the man's been in other fighting games and it would be less interesting for him to appear normally in this one.* After the enormous Main/PortingDisaster that was the PC version of VideoGame/BatmanArkhamKnight, many fans and PC players blamed Rocksteady for the terrible port, but actually, they didn't work on the PC version initially, it was ported by Iron Galaxy Studios, only 12 people worked on the port and they had a two-month deadline, the real fault is that studio and the publisher, Warner Bros Interactive Entertainment.** Another company who caught their share of misblame was [=nVidia=], as within a matter of hours of the game's performance problems being known there were widespread accusations that the company's [=GameWorks=] technology (used in the game to provide physics and additional graphical effects) was deliberately crippling performance on all AMD hardware and even [=nVidia's=] older graphics cards, all in the name of making their then-new [=GeForce=] GTX 900 series cards look good. An accusation that might have carried a lot more weight if not for the fact that the GTX 900 cards ''also'' performed terribly, with or without the [=GameWorks=] effects enabled.* ''VideoGame/StarTrekOnline'' has a lot of players blaming Cryptic themselves for things they have no control over. Probably the big one focusing on the company themselves is [=ARC=] game launcher, something added by their parent company Perfect World Entertainment. It wasn't uncommon in the days when [=ARC=] was really taking off to have players sit there and constantly blame Cryptic for trying to force what they thought was malware into their systems. Another more recent one was when PWE fired a number of workers, some of them from Cryptic. Players instantly jumped on Cryptic to proclaim that this was because of the ''Delta Rising'' expansion before it was revealed that half of those let go from Cryptic came from ''VideoGame/{{Neverwinter}}''.** Players are also happy to sit there and blame head developer Al "[=CaptainGeko=]" Rivera for anything and everything bad that happens. This descends into decisions that were made without him being around, a lot of this due to a major grudge many older players have towards him. Player gets kicked off of a player-ran podcast because of ego problems from the kicker? Geko's fault. Two developers decide to go their own ways? Geko fired them.* ''VideoGame/AnimalCrossing'':** There are fans who feel ''New Leaf'' is a step-down from the Gamecube games in terms of writing and character. Rover's dialogue at the start of both games are often compared for those arguments. The issue is, it's not the series decreasing in quality. The Gamecube localization is just less of a direct translation compared to ''New Leaf'''s. The latter's Rover dialogue is truer to the Japanese text.** ''amiibo Festival'' gets a lot of hate from people who presumed it prevented a true ''Animal Crossing'' game from appearing on UsefulNotes/WiiU. The actual reason there is not yet a Wii U installment in the series is because the ''Animal Crossing'' developers worked on ''VideoGame/{{Splatoon}}'' after the release of ''Animal Crossing: New Leaf'' for the UsefulNotes/Nintendo3DS.* Once Nintendo of America had some removal of sexually charged content in ''Videogame/FireEmblemFates'' and ''Videogame/XenobladeChroniclesX'', an angry VocalMinority threw complains at localization division Treehouse... and more specifically, a Treehouse ''marketing'' employee [[http://kotaku.com/the-ugly-new-front-in-the-neverending-video-game-cultur-1762942381 (i.e. not involved with the translation)]] who was outspoken on Twitter about online abuse against women in gaming and thus [[InsaneTrollLogic accused of somehow being a driving force behind the supposed censorship]]. [[http://nymag.com/following/2016/03/this-looks-like-a-disgraceful-gamergate-win.html# The resulting]] SmearCampaign [[http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/2016/03/30/controversy-erupts-over-nintendo-employees-termination.aspx indirectly lead to her dismissal]].* Many ''VideoGame/BanjoKazooie'' fans pointed fingers at Microsoft for making the Xbox 360 installment ''Nuts & Bolts'' vehicular-based instead of doing a traditional platformer. Actually, Rare made the decision on their own. Similarly, it was actually Rare's own idea to focus exclusively on Kinect games in the early-mid [=2010s=], though apparently in response to fears that Microsoft were considering closing the studio down after a string of flops.* ''VideoGame/PaperMarioColorSplash'' got this ''bad.'' Being a direct sequel to the poorly-received ''VideoGame/PaperMarioStickerStar'', it's often pointed to by fans as "evidence" that Nintendo is growing increasingly out of touch with their fanbase and that they didn't learn a thing from their mistakes. In reality, development on ''Color Splash'' started almost immediately after ''Sticker Star'' was released, so by the time the negative fan response started to roll in, it was too late to turn back.* At the height of the Wii's popularity, Nintendo was heavily blamed for "allowing" shovelware games to plague the console and how Nintendo should have been more restrictive with the games as they supposedly had done years back with the Nintendo Seal of Quality. In actuality, Nintendo only greenlights games that won't screw up the game console and run well enough without the game crashing from a button press or the like. Most shovelware games fall into this category. The developers of the shoddy games themselves rarely get blamed.** To reiterate, The Seal of Quality has a bit of a MisaimedFandom. It was never meant to outright block poor-quality games from being on the system. (Ask anyone -- the NES had a ''load'' of poor games that, in fact, bear the seal, though admittedly, America did not get as severe a deluge of Shovelware as Japan did during the same period.) Yes, they did have quality control, but their definition of "Quality" meant "This game will actually work if you put it in the system", not "this is a good game". Quality control generally tends to be quite subjective in any case. ----